Thursday 11 June 2026 8:00 am
| Updated:
Wednesday 10 June 2026 4:26 pm
There’s a gap widening across UK organisations that nobody is properly discussing. It’s not between technology and security. It’s between what leaders think is happening with AI tools and what the workforce is actually doing.According to Okta’s AI Agents at Work 2026 study, 96 per cent of UK executives believe they have visibility into AI tool usage. Yet, 55 per cent of UK knowledge workers use unapproved “shadow AI” tools.James Simcox, Chief Product Officer at Equals Money, sees this as a leadership challenge, “It has to be that even your executive teams feel like they own security,” he says. “For forward thinking organisations, shadow AI isn’t a problem to be locked down, it’s a signal that governance frameworks need to evolve.”That’s the core tension. This isn’t a result of bad people. It’s the outcome of good people solving problems with the tools at hand.How shadow AI spreads in practiceImagine that someone on your team finds a tool that solves a problem in five minutes instead of thirty. They mention it to a colleague. Two more of their colleagues tried it. A week later it’s normalised. They’re just being practical, not reckless.The numbers tell you why this pattern keeps repeating. Globally, 80 per cent of workers reach for unapproved tools because they’re faster and easier. 78 per cent do it because their team already uses it and it’s considered normal. When 57 per cent say the approval process is too slow or difficult, and 49 per cent say approved tools don’t meet their needs, you’re looking at a system that doesn’t fit how work actually happens. So, people work around it.“I love my teams using AI, but these tools are sometimes designed to make you want to overshare,” notes Simcox.
